My informant at the Georgia state capitol points out Senate Resolution 786, which “[encourages] the display of the Ten Commandments and the acknowledgment of God by local governments and the State of Georgia; and for other purposes.” This cites Georgia Code 45-13-41, which legally places the Ten Commandments in a list of documents that “contributed to the history of the State of Georgia.”
Now, I was a high school junior when the whole Ten Commandments-in-schools mess started. Personally, I think the whole thing is a tremendous waste of resources on both sides. Christians who want to spread the morals embodied by the Ten Commandments have better ways of doing this than overpriced monuments that then go into legal battles and take up even more time and money. I think the ACLU has more important fights to pick (copyright extension, legal protection of computer code as speech, et al). However, it looks like there is no stopping it now.
Why are religious documents treated differently than nonreligious ones? For that matter, what makes a document religious? If one does not believe in the Judeo-Christian God, then one does not believe that the Bible is anything special as a book. It loses its significance as a religious work, and becomes a literary one. What makes quoting Book 2, Chapter 20, lines 2-17 of The Bible, authors anonymous, different from quoting Act 2, Scene 2, lines 2-25 of Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare? The religious significance of the passage exists entirely in the minds of those who believe the Bible to be the Word of God. If you do not so believe, then the Bible just becomes The Bible. Why should it be treated differently from Shakespeare?
One of the interesting tricks I see in SR 786 is that a statement of fact is used in conjunction with an action that would be permissible in order to allow an (admittedly unusual) Ten Commandments display to be made in a public place. The statement of fact is simply a restatement of the text of the Commandments (in that old-school KJV language) as part of the resolution. Now, the resolution encourages postings of the Ten Commandments, as well as of all or part of its own text, by local officials. Therefore, by posting the Ten Commandments you are merely posting part of a Resolution of the Senate of the State of Georgia. Since when was there anything wrong with that?
Underhanded? Yep. I don’t believe that the Ten Commandments deserves to be placed in school halls, or on big rocks outside courthouses, on the grounds that it is a waste of time and money. In other words, not illegal, just a bad idea. I do believe that it can and should be taught in public schools as part of civics classes and world history, where codified laws (both religious and secular) are an important part of the curriculum. To me, the intriguing part of the issue is what defines religious significance, and how this can change over time. I covered this to some extent in my post about Americism. What if the Christian religion were debunked absolutely tomorrow to the extent that no believers remained? Since the Ten Commandments arguably still has had influence on Georgia law (and Georgia law itself states that fact), could the Commandments then be posted without opposition?
